Two Poems by Liz Alani

Pet Therapy

Sometimes a cat is enough to keep you going
When struggling forward seems pointless.
Sage-eyed and downy-furred
Purring your name like an emperor:
Love me, feed me, entertain me.
Twelve years ago I rescued a sable bundle of charm
And named him Badu.
He reached his paw through the shelter cage and Claimed. Me. Whole.
The adoption counselor said, “Oh honey, you don’t choose your pets,
They choose you!”
And a love story was born.

Sometimes being needed by someone anything is lifeblood.
My mother said before she died, “Liz you find a way to be needed.
You’re at your best when you’re needed.”
And so I manned crisis lines where the hopeless called for reasons to live.
For decades I helped the unhoused feel seen and heard and fed.
And now, every day, I don the great mantle of feline caregiver.
I tend to this four-pawed wonder, this soulful companion
Who depends on my love and presence
And hangs out with me to binge Netflix and popcorn,
To Facetime and read poems and other childless cat lady pursuits.

Sometimes Badu is the gossamer thread of purpose
That keeps me woven into life’s tapestry.
Sometimes in a whole day,
He is the only one who gazes deeply into my eyes,
Unblinking, disarming, conveying— You are my person.
I admire his empathy and intuition and play.
I could do worse than sprawling in a patch of sun
Purring a melody at twilight
Sensing the stir of glittered dust floating in the air.

Sometimes when the stuff that keeps me going—
Community and meaning and hope—
When those lifelines are too over the rainbow
Too pixelated on a tiny screen
Too underground or in-crowd
A feline is my consolation prize.
When I am too tender to brave this world
With its din and glamour and madness
And I crave an abiding solace to sing me home to myself
A cat is enough.

*

The Object

When I was nearly twenty
I discovered a sure way to keep myself the thing
The mere object
The gazed upon:
I gatecrashed a world where girls glance haughty at a lens
And stride to client after client
In Milan Paris London
Backpacks slung over fluted shoulders
Presenting their portfolios like offerings
To the fashionista gods
Who dissect their bodies, their hearts

And in that mythic world
The gazelles and white teethed sirens
Were a riot of skin and swagger and shine
Their confidence a riddle to me—
But I had a secret weapon
I was the girl with something to prove
The scrappy walking wound
The clown from a ruinous yellow house
I was nothing if I couldn’t be special
I was determined to come true

Sure, I had height and bone structure
But you can go a long way on defiance
And not enough-ness
I used shame as a catalyst
Not to be a designer’s muse or one of the supers
But to get out of my skin and step into her:
The Model
That parsed and glorified product
Until one day I could inhabit something truer
Something full-throated and innermost
And walk through the world without armor
Without the mirage of perfection

*

Liz Alani is an award-winning author who spent two decades as a nomadic model. Her poetry and prose explore selfhood and objectification, trauma and grief, the power of aging, and the pursuit of peace. She lives in Austin. lizalani.com